Swedish police open “sabotage” investigation into damage to Gotland's water supply March 4, 2025

Photo of a lighthouse in Gotland by Oskar Wimmerman on Umsplash

By AFP - Agence France Presse

Swedish police open “sabotage” investigation into damage to Gotland's water supply

Swedish police said on Monday that they have opened an investigation into suspected sabotage after the power cables of a pump that supplies water to the Baltic Sea island of Gotland were intentionally disconnected.

Several electricity and communications infrastructures have been damaged in the Baltic Sea in recent months after Finland and Sweden, which border the Baltic, joined NATO.

Many experts and political leaders have attributed the incidents to a “hybrid war” waged by Russia against Western countries.

The authorities in Gotland, on Sweden's southeast coast, “received an alarm regarding a water bomb” on Sunday at around 5:30 pm (16:30 GMT), the police told AFP in an email.

The police did not reveal the exact location of the incident.

“A technician was sent to the scene and found that someone had opened an electrical cabinet, disconnected a cable, and thus cut the power to the pump,” the police said.

The technician reconnected the cable and reset the alarm at 9.30 pm.

“The pump is working again,” said the police.

Gotland police cordoned off the area around the electrical cabinet to carry out a crime scene investigation.

No suspects have yet been arrested, they said.

If the action had gone undetected, much of Gotland's water supply could have been interrupted.

Around 61,000 people live on the island of 3,140 square kilometers.

The pump “supplies a large part of Gotland”, Susanne Bjergegaard-Pettersson, head of the island's water supply and sewage operations, told the newspaper Aftonbladet.

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